The exhaustion factor¶

Mrs Evadne Cake wanted to open a small tea shop in Elm Street that also offered fortune telling. Simple enough, you’d think.

That had been fourteen months ago.

First, she’d needed a business licence from the Guild of Merchants and Traders (seventeen euros, three forms, six weeks processing). Then the Guild of Seamstresses had pointed out that Elm Street fell within their ‘traditional consultation zone’, requiring their approval (twelve euros, two forms, four weeks). The Guild of Fortune Tellers, Mystics, and Charlatans demanded she register with them (twenty-three euros annually, eight forms, membership interview).

Then came the building inspection (thirty euros), the fire safety review (eighteen euros), the food handling certification (forty-one euros, two-day course, examination), and the Ankh-Morpork Business Planning Committee’s assessment of ‘neighbourhood commercial character impact’ (no fee, but requiring a seventeen-page application with supporting documentation from at least three adjacent businesses).

The Patrician’s clerk, Drumknott, had been very helpful throughout. He’d provided Mrs Cake with a detailed flowchart of the approval process. It had looked like someone had dropped spaghetti on paper and traced the resulting pattern.

“Box 7F,” he’d explained kindly, “requires approval from box 12C, but only after box 9B has been counter-signed by the authority designated in box 4A, assuming box 4A doesn’t require an appeal hearing, which necessitates forms from box 15G.”

Mrs Cake had gone home with a headache and a growing suspicion that this was somehow intentional.

By month six, she’d given up on the fortune telling element. Too complicated, what with the Guild regulations and the requirement for documented accuracy rates. Just a tea shop, then. That should be simpler.

It wasn’t.

The Tea Importers’ Guild wanted her to specify her suppliers (three forms). The Water Board needed to inspect her plumbing (sixty-two euros, three-month waiting list). The Workers’ Guild required proof that she wouldn’t be employing anyone under sixteen or over seventy without proper exemption certificates (forms available from the Age Verification Subcommittee, meeting quarterly).

Month nine, she’d scaled back further. Maybe just selling biscuits. Biscuits she made herself, in her own kitchen. No employees. No fortune telling. Just biscuits.

The Bakers’ Guild had some thoughts about that.

“The system isn’t designed to stop you,” Drumknott explained gently, when Mrs Cake arrived at the Palace in tears. “It’s designed to be thorough. Thoroughness takes time.”

“I just wanted to sell tea and biscuits!” Mrs Cake wailed.

“And you can!” Drumknott assured her. “After the process is complete. We’re almost there. You’ve only got sections 18 through 24 remaining. Should be done by Hogswatch. Next Hogswatch. Possibly.”

Mrs Cake went home. She made tea and biscuits for herself, in her own kitchen, and didn’t charge anyone. Somehow this felt like a small act of rebellion, though she couldn’t quite articulate why.

Up in his office, Vetinari made a small notation in his ledger. Another potential business neutralised through proper procedure. The system worked beautifully.

It wasn’t that he’d stopped Mrs Cake from opening a tea shop. He’d simply required her to navigate the appropriate processes. If she lacked the stamina for proper bureaucracy, well, perhaps the market wasn’t right for her enterprise anyway.

The genius of exhaustion, Vetinari had learned, was that people defeated themselves. You didn’t need walls when you had corridors. Long, tedious, form-filled corridors that went nowhere in particular but took forever to traverse.

And if someone did make it through? Well, they’d be too tired to cause any actual trouble.